DATA MONITOR SPECIAL EDITION: Climate Lies: The COP30 President’s worst nightmare is real
After five years of tracking a supply chain of lies worth US$78 billion with Mentira Tem Preço (Lies Have a Price), the time has come to share the truth about climate lies and disinformation in Brazil that few know and many want to hide. Here we go…
(This is a one-off excerpt of the inaugural Observatory for Information Integrity [Oii] newsletter in Brazil. Read the full version and sign up here to ensure you don’t miss future editions)
ANDRÉ CORRÊA DO LAGO’S WORST NIGHTMARE HAS BECOME TRUE
If the corridors of Baku at COP29 were buzzing with talk of the next COP in Brazil, as if it were the next World Cup, the feeling on digital platforms and messaging apps is very different. Instead of the ‘super positive’ COP for Brazil that the president of COP301, Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, has been dreaming of, it’s his ‘worst nightmare’, as he put it in a recent interview with Roda Viva. Why? LIES.
The COP of disinformation is real, and the strategy is to weaken the UN conference that has been trying for so long to resolve one of our biggest crises, the climate crisis, and to cast doubt on Brazil’s role as host.
The climate conference in Belém will be competing with at least two events designed to undermine its impact: the first is CPAC, in Manaus, Amazonas – a conservative conference organised in Brazil by Eduardo Bolsonaro (who may have to attend from afar, as he has gone to the US with no planned return date). The second event is the so-called ‘Agro COP’, in Marabá, Pará, organised by the Association of Independent Rural Producers of the Amazon.
These two events, which will take place in close proximity to the Belém COP in terms of both geography and timing, were created to stir things up on social media against the climate conference.
1 (Let’s face it, the statements about drilling for oil at the mouth of the Amazon river haven’t helped either).
SO, HOW DOES THIS WHOLE SUPPLY CHAIN OF LIES WORK?
To get things moving, we need algorithms that work 24/7 without any transparency; lies that compete in the race without taking doping tests — an MIT study showed that lies spread 70 per cent faster than truthful information; companies that profit from all this; and clicks and views — yes, ours, from the very people being harmed —that reward the system with power, influence and lots of money…
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